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Sir Clive Sinclair has died

theguardian.com

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Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#301

Post by Turing_Machine »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #239
hughrr wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually that’s not strictly true. Test methodology was “see if it worked and ship”. Many many of the computers were returned and replaced immediately. And a lot of the new ones you got were the broken ones which were sent back and the chips replaced. I’ve seen a new one which still didn’t work which had been reworked at least once and sold as new again. My father had a nice business for a few years doing adhoc repai…

It's not that unique in the computer business. I used to build PCs for a shop during the 90s internet craze. When we got a box of Quantum Bigfoot HDDs we'd be lucky if half of them worked. Someone who cared about quality wouldn't put that crap in a computer. But it was cheap. The soundcards we sold were so cheap they were cut diagonally to save on PCB material. Though this shop just did it for profit margin. Sinclair…

> It's not that unique in the computer business.

Yes, it's very common. Even companies like Intel sometimes test a CPU at umpteen GHz, then retest the ones that fail at umpteen/2 GHz and sell them at a lower price if they work reliably at the lower speed.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#302

Post by setpatchaddress »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #277
RantyDave wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The QL failed because (amongst other things) they had outsourced the basic interpreter to another company for the ZX series and decided to bring it in house for the QL :(

I attribute the decline of the UK’s domestic computer industry (including Acorn) to the scene as-a-whole being either uninterested or unwilling to embrace PC-compatibility. Had they done that, I think they could have secured better distribution deals, especially in education, but eve more-so overseas. What if Sinclair, Amstrad, and Acorn were able to establish themselves as a third-way (like Amiga and Be almost did)…

Various people tried the PC+ scheme in the US and had limited success. Tandy probably came closest.

Sinclair and Acorn were extremely ambitious. Acorn even sold an NTSC conversion of the BBC Micro in the US for a short time. My theory is they were undercapitalized.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#303

Post by antod »

becurious wrote: post #284
headmelted wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My story is so similar to yours (and I’m sure many others). Santa brought my house a Spectrum 48k Lo Profile when I was a kid with a cool KnightRider style keyboard. Over the years I haven’t seen it talked about much if at all, so I always assumed it was a fairly niche model. After hearing about Sir Clive, I looked it up to find out how many sold and was surprised to learn that it never actually existed as a standalo…

There were many 3rd party add-on keyboards for the 16K/48K Spectrum. I got the Saga 1 Emperor keyboard the Christmas after I got my 48K. You opened the case of the Spectrum, removed the ribbon connectors from the board and then attached the new keyboard and screwed the bottom plus board to it. There was some magical feeling back then that I think is hard to capture now. The manuals were really good for teaching you -…

> I learned sine and cosine from the diagrams in the manual years before we covered them in maths.

You too?

I didn't fully understand them, and thought they had more to do with circles than triangles, but yeah that circle drawing code in the Spectrum manual was my first exposure to sin and cos.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#304

Post by marttt »

ghoul2 wrote: post #101

RIP Sir. I was gifted the 48K when I was 6 yrs old - it changed my life. I am here because Sir Sinclair built a machine whose setup instructions said: Now that you have set up the computer, you will want to use it. The rest of this booklet tells you how to do that; but in your impatience you will probably already have started pressing the keys on the keyboard, and discovered that this removes the copyright message. T…

> "You cannot harm the computer in this way. Be bold."

What an empathetic, caring, tactful way to teach tech to kids. The whole instruction is like that, a really well composed message. No hypes or overpowering, just guiding children to quiet explorations.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#305

Post by pvg »

krallja wrote: post #289
pvg wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You cannot harm the computer in this way." This seems quite likely to have been inspired by some of the intro documentation for the Apple ][, apparently written by Jef Raskin. Short comment about it from a few years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15077364

Jef*

D'oh, fixed now, thanks.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#306

Post by CodeMage »

nanis wrote: post #191
ghoul2 wrote: post #101

RIP Sir. I was gifted the 48K when I was 6 yrs old - it changed my life. I am here because Sir Sinclair built a machine whose setup instructions said: Now that you have set up the computer, you will want to use it. The rest of this booklet tells you how to do that; but in your impatience you will probably already have started pressing the keys on the keyboard, and discovered that this removes the copyright message. T…

Mine was smuggled into the country due to currency crises and import/export controls. I owe thanks to my mother for arranging that so that I could graduate from writing programs using paper and pencil to using an actual computer. Thank you Psion's Horizons cassette for teaching me about computer architecture. Thank you Toni Baker for teaching me Z80 assembly so I could program x86 with no problem. But, thank you Sir…

Mine was a second-hand smuggled ZX Spectrum 48k. The first computer I ever saw was Galaksija, at the school where my mom and dad worked. The school later got a Lola 8, but by then my mom and dad bought me a used Spectrum and I was happily plugging the depths of BASIC, and later assembly.

Farewell, Sir Clive, and thank you for some of my best memories.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#307

Post by adfm »

srcmap wrote: post #218
ghoul2 wrote: post #101

RIP Sir. I was gifted the 48K when I was 6 yrs old - it changed my life. I am here because Sir Sinclair built a machine whose setup instructions said: Now that you have set up the computer, you will want to use it. The rest of this booklet tells you how to do that; but in your impatience you will probably already have started pressing the keys on the keyboard, and discovered that this removes the copyright message. T…

My first compute was ~1984 Timex_Sinclair_1000 $99 and with 2K RAM. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_1000 It definitively the gateway drug that hook me into computer. Bought $6 book on how to program Sinclair computer and copy the Basic Code from the book into that computer and record that program into audio cassette tape and output to analog TV. Now I working daily with systems that have 128 cores, 256 t…

My first computer was a Timex Sinclair 1000, too. That keyboard was too much, but you kept at it! And if you even looked at that memory module funny, it would short out and you'd have to stay up all night and re-key everything back in by hand. We got more use out of the TRS-80s at school, but having a machine to ourselves at home was influential.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#308

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

setpatchaddress wrote: post #302
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I attribute the decline of the UK’s domestic computer industry (including Acorn) to the scene as-a-whole being either uninterested or unwilling to embrace PC-compatibility. Had they done that, I think they could have secured better distribution deals, especially in education, but eve more-so overseas. What if Sinclair, Amstrad, and Acorn were able to establish themselves as a third-way (like Amiga and Be almost did)…

Various people tried the PC+ scheme in the US and had limited success. Tandy probably came closest. Sinclair and Acorn were extremely ambitious. Acorn even sold an NTSC conversion of the BBC Micro in the US for a short time. My theory is they were undercapitalized.

> My theory is they were undercapitalized.

Yes, this. Very much so.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#310

Post by RachelF »

srcmap wrote: post #218
ghoul2 wrote: post #101

RIP Sir. I was gifted the 48K when I was 6 yrs old - it changed my life. I am here because Sir Sinclair built a machine whose setup instructions said: Now that you have set up the computer, you will want to use it. The rest of this booklet tells you how to do that; but in your impatience you will probably already have started pressing the keys on the keyboard, and discovered that this removes the copyright message. T…

My first compute was ~1984 Timex_Sinclair_1000 $99 and with 2K RAM. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_1000 It definitively the gateway drug that hook me into computer. Bought $6 book on how to program Sinclair computer and copy the Basic Code from the book into that computer and record that program into audio cassette tape and output to analog TV. Now I working daily with systems that have 128 cores, 256 t…

yep, same for me. I remember being astounded as a kid that you could make something that would actually be seen on a TV screen!
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